in the eighth month, we
by pozarpel
Summary: What good do blindfolds ever do? People like us should want to see it all, right? / A series of kagerou project drabbles and short fics.
1. momo - second child lament

Maybe it was normal for all little sisters.

Maybe she was misunderstanding.

When she was little, young but just old enough, she tried to misunderstand.

But the petty resentment was always rooted there regardless what she did. Inextricable. She could bury it and smile, at her mother and her father and even at him, but it still gripped and chilled her—when she was little, that ounce's worth of jealousy could consume her like the deluge of the sea. A good day turned bad at the drop of hat, because…

Her brother was a genius.

She didn't remember a time when this clicked, when she realized that her brother was exceptional, above average, prodigious. He was so lazy. And he definitely wasn't a praiseworthy older brother. Shintaro wasn't cruel, but he kept to himself. Momo wasn't hurt so much by that (not that much, not that much, she learned not to follow her big brother around early on, that way. Really, what an unreliable guy.)

She didn't mind it because he was that way with everyone. When she spotted him at school, he was alone. When he walked home, he was alone. On the week-ends and on holidays and on festivals, her top-performance brother couldn't be bothered to foster relationships properly, damn him.

It just made him stick out more. So it drew Momo into his shadow.

Because even if she'd learned early on not to follow nii-chan—he wouldn't let her, he didn't care— she already was following nii-chan. His teachers were her teachers, but his reputation preceded her. Smart kid, bad attitude. That Kisaragi genius kid. That made her that Kisaragi's little sister, not nearly as precocious, not even remotely; it was as if he'd sponged up all the smarts in their family and left her brain bare. It was almost as if he'd said it himself: she was stupid. She was a simpleton because of him, and she hated him for that.

Those were the days when she'd pull his hair and ruin his sand castles, ruin his everything if she could get her grubby little fingers on it, and she cried sometimes because she didn't want to do it but she was driven by envy and it was the only way to get their parents to glance aside their talented, troubled eldest son. Momo was generally cheerful, so she didn't need anything, right?

It wasn't that they were bad parents, and yet—and yet— she couldn't get them to notice her when it counted, and it ached deep down somewhere she had no name for. Shintaro wouldn't even notice her glares. Nobody would.

But at some point—and she can't remember—her fits got so bad that it worked. Something was understood. She was understood.

She was really happy, that day her dad took her to the beach.

It was almost like he was making up for lost time. He didn't mention Shintaro once. They sang in the car and he bought her ice cream and carried her on his shoulders.

Swimming in the ocean, too, would have been fantastic. But it was unexpected; the tides carried her little body away, away, away and _down_. She hadn't meant to go so far out. It's strange, though, how close to a dream that memory is, how oblique and shadowed. When she thinks of it, she's simply flooded with a feeling of terror and streaks of memories that ring brief and loud.

The water had sapped her energy away. Her limbs had never been heavy before or thereafter, but at that time she fought to swing them, to flail, to wave, anything, anything to tread water that far out. The waves wouldn't let her progress, the waves continually dunked her entire body down as if she were a teensy bath toy straying in the tide. She pushed her head above the water and she screamed, she screamed until her voice was nothing and her sea-addled lungs were aching. She could see the shoreline, but the colorful throngs of people—not one of them could see her.

She was going to die, cold, fatigued, devoid of hope and unnoticed in time of crisis. It was frustrating, it was too frustrating—whatever energy she had left must have manifested in her angry tears.

She passed out, and she's sure. She sank. She sank, and she heard the voice of an angel.

And when she woke up, quivering, she was surrounded first by sand, and secondly, by a crowd of beachgoers, their craned, concerned faces forming a circle around her vision. They cheered when she coughed up saltwater, her first sign of life—of coming back to life?

Maybe it was normal for those who underwent near death experiences like that.

But she felt slightly, profoundly different, a detail poised at the edge of her bare brains, something she couldn't place.

("Your eyes," Shintaro had said in the doorway to her room. "Were they always like that?" )


	2. kidokano - shared shock effects

warning: this series of stories will have some mature themes? mostly in a sexual sense. This is the first of it. So if that bothers you...

* * *

They call childhood "the springtime of youth"—yours wasn't so convivial, but you think you've got the second season down pat. The summer of adolescence, that is. It follows, doesn't it? If spring is light, fanciful, gracious and easy, then summer is the next stage: your emotions peak and sizzle, magnified by teenage passionsthat boil your blood as much as any sun ray—oh, yes, the zenith of your strong feelings is here and now, and you don't want to let go. These last few evenings you've been out to hours of the early morning with Kido.

There's just something about summer nights that brings you both a little off-the-edge, like blurry visions and trembling sidewalks tossed under your feet; you walk, and it's only walking, but it's shaky and intrepid and warm to the core, because the night doesn't let up and the sensation of hazy joys reverberates through your bodies like a chord struck wrong—ah, it's just right, you think, you love nights like these and it shows like a red streak across your face. Kido's a little less rigid, a little less sharp, the aphrodisiac of late hours spent together does her some good.

You kiss each other against the alley wall. You behave as best as you can, hands straining in your pockets—"We should get back," Kido breathes, and you hear, _to be continued_. You're staring at the crook of her neck, slow to respond, your thoughts are pulsing to an off-track beat. Kido gets them all shaken up when you let her, and she hasn't the faintest idea about it. You flash a dauntless smile at her and take her by the hand and breathe, "Yeah," like Westerner's _amens _and you go, slow and steady. The door adorned with the golden one-oh-seven is only a few streets down.

You don't do comfortable silences, but this is as close as it's going to get. You slip a glance over your shoulder and see her humming with contentment, and you think you may have just successfully replaced her mp3 player. Her at-peace-with-the-world expression, while charming in its own way, could get irritating once you heard the pesky hum of techno music too, what a bother—but when you go out like this, what with your humid nights on the town, she keeps her earphones tucked away. It might be courtesy, though you offer no such thing.

Your gifts to her are fun and forgetfulness, your gifts are frivolous things. (Except when they're not; you brushed her bangs aside and you held her hand tightly and you reminded her in every minute fashion that she was not invisible. To those ends, you couldn't stop pestering her, either.)

You peek with a grin that splits your face, and after she lifts her eyes she downs them just as fast, and by headlights and neon you know she's blu-u-ushing. Her expressions are too cute. Though you'd never say it. Just to keep up a lie, just to sustain the things you have left—and you're no _deredere_, and neither is she, but what does proper romance matter in your adolescent summers? You want to kiss her again, until you catch the end of a slight snicker tapering off—you glance at her again, and she says, "You look like a genuine idiot right now," and tugs her hood down with her free hand but you still see her smile.

"Me? Genuine?" You say, and you slow down because you're not a block off from home now. "Yeah, genuine's the word. I'm giving it a try, danchou. It's because the food we got was too delicious! Too delicious!"

She smiles still at your theatrics, and you somehow feel like you've really hit the jackpot tonight. "Settle down, though," she says, and covers her mouth. "If the neighbors complain about you again…"

"Ah, don't threaten me." You sidle up next to her, brushing shoulders as you lean over. "It's such bad form to make death glares at a boy you wanna kiss." She shoves you (hard) and you bite out a laugh and stop yourself, wobbling, two inches from the door. You turn on your heel, fish out your house keys, and open the way—"Ladies first," you quip, and slide in before her, and she grits and sighs and says, "_Kano_," but you think she wants to smile. You let her pass by you, and despite yourself, you are anticipating kissing her on a bed—she gives you the OK when she looks over her shoulder at you, a bit sheepish as she strides a pace ahead. You take the time to close the door behind your esteemed leader, and—

and then she stops dead-still at the mouth of the short hallway in. You come up behind her, hardly noticing anything amiss, that's your genuine good mood at work, and then you see it, too.

Seto, shirtless—

Mary, back to the couch cushions, her locks trailing every which way—

A bare shoulder— hesitant hands-

Their forms, close close close—

You think you hear giggling but it is a distinctly different kind of giggling than normal and you always thought those two, with their bunnies and sparrows, were more the spring to your summer but _wow, _you tear your eyes away in dizzied distress and next to you, Kido is frantically ratcheting up her concealment and she clutches your arm like she'll wrench it off and drags you quietly across the floorboards and closes the door as if it is made of glass. You slouch against the wall outside, catching your bated breath together without exchanging one glance.

You are both, naturally, blushing like crazy to say the least. Ah, maybe you're not so cool.

"Do you think they saw," you ask, wide-eyed, you need brain bleach, brain bleach, it's too awkward to handle. Seto. Wow.

"I don't know," Kido says, and her face is already buried in her hands.

"Oh, man." You whistle. "The birds and the bees, our lovebirds. So that's what they're doing when we're out late?"

She takes the time to creak her face at you, horrified, and you're pretty horrified too but after a few moments you ease out a laugh and you say, "Sleepover at the Kisaragi's?"

(You'll come up with some excuse for them. Your friends need their _alone time_. You, you have been spoiled rotten with yours. )


	3. hibiya&shintaro - ice

"Hey. Don't you have any friends your own age?"

You're not sure what force stripped you of your vocal filters this morning, but there it is: a question you'd resolved not to ask.

You don't quite understand the Mekakushi Dan. Any of it, actually. You don't remember experiencing such thorough bafflement in a really long time, so in that troublesome way of thinking favored by every girl you've ever met, you guess it's probably good for you. Refreshing.

Except, just, that one kid.

Kano's obnoxious and Konoha's the strangest of strange, but it's that one kid that _bothers_ you. It's not even that he's doing anything you're opposed to; there's not really any active endeavor to do anything at all on his part—he's just a kid enjoying the summer. But damn if he doesn't find the dreariest way to do it.

When you went to school, there were many different kinds of troublesome people—people who were so perpetually cheerful that it grated your nerves, and people who were so perpetually cheerful that it only astounded you. The 8th member is so perpetually solemn that it befuddles you something fierce. Red eyes are one thing, but such a grave countenance on a young face like that, that's, that's probably the thing that bothers you, you guess. You haven't the faintest idea why.

So one day, draped over the back of a chair, you ask him a question that you'd hate.

Across the table, Hibiya Amamiya stares at you hard, his cheek pressed into an upheld hand. Kido's hard glares are one thing, but you think this kid could be on his way, too. Tack on a few years and his foreboding expression could give you some trouble.

"No. Why do you ask?" he says, and you almost don't want to go into it because the response rings with belligerent suspicion. Kido's cooking, Momo's recording, Ene's sleeping, the others are out doing who-knows-what, so. There's no running away. You think, you do want to know what's up with this kid, in fact.

"Well—" you pause, your words floundering in your throat. You lower your chin onto your forearms folded across the chair back. You look him up and down and you could swear he is two steps away from glaring outright at you, but you choose to ignore that. You already knew he could be bratty as well as gloomy, not that you particularly mind it. He and Momo picked fights with each other all the time—loud fights—and on some occasions you told them to cut it out because of the noise factor rather than some brotherly impulse.

You're not sure how to express what about this whole set up bugs you so much. Maybe you're a little worried, too. You know that nobody here is "typical" but then there are those who delight in it and those who seem caught on its downside.

(Maybe they're all upset, but Hibiya's too young to hide it. Oh—that's it. It's sympathy, this thing that's bugging you.)

"Well, what are you, twelve?" You gesture vaguely. "Ten? Eleven?"

"What's age got to do with it, onii-san?" he asks tersely, and twists his face to mumble dissatisfaction into his palm. "Sometimes even I forget."

You're not sure how to react to that. "OK, but—"

"Friends my age?" he interrupts, as if he's unwilling to hear any more from you. He shrugs, and you think, what a brat. Such a brat. But you strain to hear. "No way. They're all just too…"

"Childish?"

"Like Momo." He makes a face. "It's hard to deal with them."

Well, you can't disagree with that. He looks right at you—you can just barely see the shift of hues in his eyes, serving as further reminder that this kid isn't like every other ten year old brat out there. Still, you flick a finger in his direction, squinting. "Say, Hibiya-kun, are you aware that you yourself are a child, too?"

"What of it?"

You watch him bite the inside of his cheek and hold your gaze with a disdain years beyond his time. "If anything," he starts, "the criteria for being in the Mekakushi Dan would be the red eye ability, onii-san. Which you don't have, right? Isn't it so? Not to mention your lame history."

"Lame history?" you ask, indignant. Hibiya doesn't smile, but you think he wants to. You can hear the self-satisfaction ripe in his voice.

"Two years as a hikikomori? Who _does_ that?" He settles his chin over crossed arms, not even looking at you now. You're used to the criticism, it's same old same old, ha ha, what a loser sticking out his sadness cooped up in a little hole of a room, a pitiful display of a pitiful boy who wouldn't, couldn't move on—

Beyond your understanding, you get the sense that in some way, this kid is a little more mature than you.

You lean back into nothing, clicking your tongue and willing away the urge to get defensive. You feel you must maintain a cool front or this kid will rip you apart one way or another. He looks like just the type that will latch onto weakness and claw. Scary.

You level a look at him, straining for the root of the issue.

"What's your damage then, smart ass?"

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"You're always moping. You might as well be cooped up in your room." It feels like a slight triumph for half a second, because you feel you've gone and been clever or perceptive, but Hibiya doesn't get indignant at all. He acknowledges your observation with a sigh of resignation and swipes at his forehead. This damnable heat.

"Well, maybe I would be, if my house was around here."

"Are you seriously saying you're only hanging around because you have nothing else to do?"

"So?"

"Oldest excuse in the book. Lame."

"What's that supposed to mean, onii-san?"

"You're trying to act reluctant and distasteful, but it's not like you really dislike us all so much." You know the act very well, you went center stage with it, acting like your classmates were a drag and a burden, acting like it bothered you that she followed you so faithfully—ugh, it disgusts you, and to see it on Hibiya bothers you more. "You obviously like being here. You're here every day."

This is the first time you've caught him off guard, and his mouth moves slightly, wordlessly, and then in low tones he says:

"I… do like Konoha-nii. And Kano and Kido are really cool. And Seto's nice, and Mary makes good tea, and Ene can beat me at games—" You make a note to challenge this kid to a game and crush him for his respect. He goes quiet again. Pensive.

You think you see an involuntary shudder run over his body. It's too hot to shiver like that. He's quiet, and you think he might say something about you or Momo, too, but he's thinking about something else, something far gone. You recognize the thundering fact that you still know very little.

"…Mostly, mostly it's that my house isn't here. So this is the next best place."

The next best place. You are feeling that seeping sympathy again, so you abruptly steer the conversation to safer tides.

"Er… so why're you in the city if you don't live here? Are you visiting someone?"

"Summer courses." His insouciant response troubles you for a second—as far as you know, he really is at room one-oh-seven every day, and present there even as the local school held class.

"But you don't go to summer classes."

He lifts his eyes a bit at that. "I don't need to." Those are the kind of words that might have held a poorly veiled pride at one time, but as he says them they ring hollow.

"But didn't you say you're here for summer classes?"

"Yeah, but they're not required for me. So I don't go anymore. Understand?"

You retain your tact just enough to stop pursuing the contradiction, but your poor facial control allows for what must be the most stupid looking bafflement ever seen, and Hibiya takes it upon himself to alleviate your needless confusion. "I went," he says with an edge, "because I wanted to spend some time with a friend. I'm top of my class, so I don't actually need to take classes over the summer."

"Oh," you say. "Yeah. I was the same." Top of the class. You never would have guessed it, but it does match up with his bearing. You think you might have made Hibiya sadder. It doesn't show, but he holds himself a little tighter, scowls at the table surface, inhales a brusque breath.

"Do I get to ask a question now?" he asks pointedly. You hesitate to nod, but it wasn't like he actually desired your permission.

"Why're you asking all these questions all of a sudden?" He's studying you, for the first time, and it makes your body breach high alert. You guess he has a right to know, probably. But you don't even know.

"I don't know?" you inform him. "Just trying to get to know you better. You know about my stint as a NEET somehow, but I don't know anything about you at all. Other than the fact that you're a brat."

"So you're saying you're being nosy, onii-san." Everything Hibiya says is sharp in that tawny little passive-aggressive way. You do not remember being this much of a little shit when you were his age, and if it was so you feel consummate pity for anyone who had to deal with you.

"I'm being _friendly_." You think, this has gone south fast.

You feel clammy; whether it's the fault of Hibiya's disconcerting eyes or the cloying heat, you have no clue. Your red track suit makes it hard to survive in heat like this. But it gives you an idea. You pitch a glance at Hibiya, make a cursory survey of the base for a moment, and then shrug. "Hey. Speaking of which."

He expends some small effort to raise his eyebrows at you.

"I feel like I'm gonna die—"

"Why do you wear two layers like that then?"

"Shut up. I'm offering to take you out for ice cream."

Hibiya pauses at that, pressing his mouth shut for a moment. He sure thinks things out, inconsequential or not. "Where?"

"Wherever."

"No catch?"

"Jesus, Amamiya. No. Quit grilling me. You want ice cream, don't you?"

"It's just suspicious."

"It's really not."

"Mochi ice cream?"

"Yeah. Sure."

"Chocolate mochi ice cream?"

"You're just as bad as Momo."

He just makes an annoyed sound of protest, but in the next moment you hear the low scraping of his chair as he stands up—not very tall at all, although now he has a much more neutral expression. Well, it wavers. He _hmphs _when you hold the door open for him, skips down the stairs and walks as fast as possible in the direction of the ice cream shop with you trailing behind—you still lack all that youthful energy—you're relieved when he slows down, stops, and glances over at you.

The sun and the heat blares overhead, and you're both rubbing at your foreheads, brushing away your sweat-slicked bangs, and he calls out to you. "Buy ice cream for everyone else, too. We'll have to hurry back before it all melts!"

He turns on his foot and he dashes down the street and you think-

Hibiya Amamiya is still just a little kid somewhere, isn't he?


	4. shinaya - no test on this

You didn't know everything.

Her favorite song, her precious memories, the places she'd been, the books she liked, the people she loved. That she had three siblings she'd give her life for, you had no idea about it. You'd never asked. You only asked her one question, you think- "Are you an idiot?"- but mystified by her smile and her relentlessness, you had told her every trivial thing you were:

_I like vocaloid songs._  
(Real voices, real people, you're not too keen on them.)

Really?

_Even though I'd figured it all out, my dad taught me how to read music two days a week after school.  
_(That was before he drowned at sea.)

How nice that is.

_I don't want to leave this city, anyway.  
_(Your toxic feelings, they'd only follow you.)

I see.

_Most books bore me.  
_(Everything bores you.)

Hehe, that makes sense. You're a genius, after all.

( You wonder about that. )

_I have one sister. We're not close.  
_(Oh, you might have given your life for her, too, back then. But not for her sake; all for yours. )

What? That's a pity, Shintaro!

More's the pity, were you really close with Ayano? For all your answers, to have none for her- for all your brilliance, to spare none for her-  
Your mystery, your salvation, and your downfall, that beloved girl in red.

On that front, you never knew her answer, and you never told her yours. Never addressed, never, ever addressed, and what right did you have to say it if you hadn't known, ignorant, rotten, foolish-

_The person I love is..._

That lovely smile, you've almost forgotten it. And then you'll have nothing left, Shintaro Kisaragi.


	5. mary - an unending grief

(( WARNING: death & eye gore & corpse mutilation! ))

The boy in black and electric yellow, monster wrought in dementia and human skin, he straddles the lifeless green-clad form—just one of the bodies littering the floor, like crumpled sheets in the classroom she's never seen. But this is home, and those are friends, or they were, before they were corpses. Mary's tears won't come, the slightest movement, the slightest breath won't come. She trembles once, and for all her bursting, crackling emotions she's as still as the chilled "statues" in her mother's yard.

"If the eyes say as much as the mouth," that boy says, and every word is heinous, like globs of venom are running down from his lips rather than trails of blood—it is the ugliest and most hated sound, but his voice is seamless, without a hitch, much like the sure motion that swipes down at Seto's face. She can't see the rest, only the dark contours of his body, the twitch of his shoulder and the bounce of his hair when he rips, when he _yanks—_

Mary hears a wet _pop_, and flinches. She hears the sickening second _pop, _the _splurch_, and her spine feels like ice, and her chest like roiling, hot sorrow, and her ribcage won't expand enough, she can't breathe enough—

Something wet and sticky rolls out on the floor in front of her, lacking ceremony but with bone-breaking impact. It's a blaring red, even in this dim light, it's sharp and steely downturn, even at the bottom of hell.

"How will he call for help now?" that warped boy says dispassionately, and carelessly, cruelly wrenches the corpse up by the hair, in the small light where her sight becomes reluctantly possible. So she sees. Blood drips on the black of his hair, from the pallid white of Kuroha's fingertips, and again, and again, from the gaping black pit of Seto's sockets. Those eyes were once warm. The first kind eyes she'd ever—

Rising to his feet, Kuroha pulls him up more and slams him down with a punishing flick of the wrist, brutal without effort, and the-body-that-was-her-Seto drops, not with a soft slump, not able to catch itself and laugh it off, removed of all that strength and softness. The dull _crack_, graceless and ringing, expands in her head: it sounds like the end of the world.

She screams, and doesn't stop.


End file.
